


Many Happy Returns

by fardareismai



Series: This Rose is Extra [17]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV), The Office (UK)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairing, F/M, One-Shot, Roselock, birthday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 05:29:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4251120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While celebrating Sherlock's birthday in the Prime Universe, they run into a familiar face, if not a familiar man.  Part of This Rose is Extra, taking place during the timeline of Holmes and Tyler are Dead.  A RoseLock crossover between BBC's Sherlock and Doctor Who.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Many Happy Returns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aeonish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeonish/gifts).



> **To celebrate the absolutely fabulous Aeonish 's birthday, we have a wee bit of RoseLock... something.**
> 
> **It was meant to be fluff, but ended up as something else entirely. It's also very late because the first write-through of it was absolutely appalling. This is better (if still a bit weird).**
> 
> **Happy Birthday, my dear!**
> 
> **_For those of you who follow this series, this takes place during the timeline of Holmes and Tyler are Dead sometime between chapters 25 and 27._ **

_Like you've seen a ghost._

Tim had heard the term several times before, but had never seen anyone actually look that way. Particularly not at him. On his best days he was attractive enough, but he had no illusions that he was anything but a short, small, unassuming man.

It was the wait staff singing to the bloke that had got his attention initially, as is the intention of such things.

No, that was a lie. It was the girl who'd gotten his attention first, in a vague sort of way that a pretty girl always does, but it had been the wait staff that had sharpened mild appreciation into real interest and he'd looked at the pair carefully.

The singing waiters had made the bloke stiffen perceptibly and shoot a sharp glare at the girl, who'd grinned like the Cheshire Cat at him. Once the waiters had left, the man had said something, leaning forward across the table and into the girl's space, and Tim had wondered if he were really angry. The girl had just laughed and taken the hand that he'd rested on the table. That small gesture had caused the bloke to relax, and when she picked it up and kissed his knuckles, he'd even given her a small, grudging smile.

They were a handsome pair, the two of them. He was tall and pale with dark hair and light eyes. He had the sort of face that sticks with a person. Compelling, he supposed it would be called, sharp-angled cheekbones and piercing eyes, but softened by a generous mouth. Not quite pretty, and not quite handsome, but appealing.

The girl was easier. She was a curvy armful of golden skin and blonde hair. She should have looked like a dumb blonde- pretty, mostly pointless, shallow- but she did not. There was something indefinable about her that made Tim oddly certain that she was a woman who knew her worth.

He'd nearly finished his meal and been trying to decide between another drink or heading home when they'd come in. The waiters had already sung to him as well, heightening his embarrassment at being in the restaurant alone (Dawn was out of town, he was seeing his parents over the weekend, and hadn't felt up to the sort of foolishness his best mate would try to dream up). For reasons he couldn't quite explain, he'd ordered the drink and watched the pair as they settled in, ordered, and talked. He couldn't explain why, but even when he told himself that he was being rude, watching them so closely, he couldn't seem to stop. They weren't doing anything particularly interesting, just talking quietly together, but he found it soothing to watch them.

Finally, after finishing his second drink, ordering and receiving a third, he stood and crossed to their table with it, the whole time shouting at himself that he was being an absolute tit, but somehow unable to stop himself. He'd just wish the bloke a happy birthday, he decided. It was his right, sharing the birthday with him, surely.

"Er… Hello," he said, as he came up to the table. "Just… er… wanted to wish you a happy birthday."

The pair of them turned to him, the girl with a smile, and the bloke with a look of mild annoyance, but the sudden change of expression on both faces was like the flipping of a switch. The girl's eyes widened and the smile vanished. The pink flush of laughter in her cheeks drained away and she sat looking at him like he was a ghost or a monster.

Tim glanced at the bloke instead. His face was harder to read. He'd gone even paler, but his face was otherwise immobile- a mask that could hide anything behind it.

"Er…" he began, not sure what to say. "M'name's Tim Canterbury. I just… well it's my birthday today as well, so I thought… I just wanted…"

~?~?~?~?~

_Blindsided- to be taken completely by surprise._

It had taken all of Rose's persuasive skill (and not a small bit of both nagging and wheedling) to convince Sherlock to leave the UNIT lab and go to dinner with her for his birthday. She'd intentionally not mentioned the waiters, but had enjoyed his look of consternation.

This Tim Canterbury character though, that just put the cocked hat on things, didn't it?

"I just… well it's my birthday today as well, so I thought… I just wanted…"

"Happy birthday to you as well," came a voice from across the table, nearly surprising Rose as much as the man standing before her did. "You should join us for a drink."

Rose turned and, sure enough, it was Sherlock Holmes still sitting across from her, and Sherlock Holmes who had invited a stranger (though a horribly familiar stranger) to sit with them over a glass of wine.

She glanced at the man still standing, and found him looking at her with a question in his eyes. He wanted her permission before joining them.

"I hate to interrupt your date…" he said, by way of explanation.

It was such a  _John_ thing to say- self-effacing, humble, and just a bit shy- that Rose felt a sudden lump in her throat. Gods, but she hadn't seen that face in an age, and had never expected to again without fury in those grey-blue eyes.

"Yeah, join us. It's your birthday, after all. No one should spend it alone." She managed a smile, and John- no,  _Tim_ , she said to herself- returned it, and pulled up a chair to their little table.

"So… er… hi," he said, still a bit awkward. "Sorry, I don't think I caught your names?"

"Rose Tyler," she said with a smile. He had John's voice as well as his face. It made her heart ache to hear it.

"William Holmes," Sherlock said, extending a hand.

Rose hid a smile in her wineglass as the two men shook hands. The real John didn't even know Sherlock's full name, but here he was handing it to a stranger who looked like him.

It would be funny if she didn't want to cry.

"So… are you two from around here?"

"Yeah," Rose said, shaking herself out of her reverie. "I grew up in Peckham, but sometimes it seems like a different universe, you know?"

"Oh yeah, London's that way though, isn't it?"

"And you?" Sherlock asked. "Are you from around here?"

Tim laughed. "Yeah. Just up the way a bit. My mum and dad live in town as well, I hardly ever leave London, really."

"There are worse places," Sherlock said, and Rose could tell that he was hearing John telling them stories of the war and the shadows that weren't behind Tim's eyes.

"So what do you do, Tim? Where do you work?" Rose asked, trying to dispel the ghost of John Watson.

~?~?~?~?~

_Shock and recovery._

In an eventful life, Sherlock could remember very few things that had truly shocked him. He had been frightened, confused, and awestruck on several occasions, but an occurrence that causes both mind and body to begin to fail? That was nigh unheard-of.

He supposed, if he'd thought about it, he might have guessed that there would be doppelgangers in this universe. Mickey had had a twin, he knew that. Rose's father and mother. Had he given it any thought at all, he might have realized that he and John might have doubles as well.

He didn't think that having thought of it, he would have been any less shocked by being confronted with a man who both was and wasn't his best friend. To see in those eyes that he knew nearly as well as his own no recognition at all. To hear John Watson (or what appeared to be him) talking to him about working in a perfectly ordinary, faceless, cubicle job.

He wondered if, perhaps, he had been imagining the whole thing, but Rose's silence in the dark beside him told him that something strange had happened.

"I miss John," she said into the dark.

"Yes."

They continued down the street for several more minutes, together but alone in their thoughts.

"What do you suppose are the chances that we'll ever see John- the proper one- again?" Sherlock asked.

"We're saving the world, it's a dangerous business, that. But if we get it right, he'll be safe. John and Mickey and… and all of them. They'll be alright."

And suddenly the dark was too much to bear. It was too quiet, too lonely, too much.

Sherlock reached his hand out in the dark and, like a magnet to its true north, found her hand, small and warm and strong as hope.

Rose sighed, her breath making a mist in the cold air.

"I'm glad we're together though. If we have to go through it, it's better together. It's better with two."

Sherlock sighed as well.

"Yes. Better with two."

"Happy birthday, Sherlock."


End file.
